From: sgillbee	Date: April 29th, 2008 02:13 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Whenever I see "in case of fire use stairs" signs I'm always reminded of a cartoon I saw a number of years ago.

It was a Wizard of Id cartoon (you know, the one with the silly king who's always managing to get into trouble). The king is standing on the balcony of his castle overlooking a rioting mob of pitch-fork-wielding peasants that are laying siege (no doubt he's done something stupid again). The king sees the peasants wheeling a crudely constructed set of stairs towards the wall so that they can climb up to the balcony and take care of business. He turns to his wizardly adviser and in somewhat of a panic asks what should be done in such an emergency. Like any good bureaucrat, the wizard takes out The Book of Instructions and finds the appropriate page. The entry shows a nice diagram of a castle wall with wooden stairs approaching and a soldier standing on top of the wall with a flaming torch. Underneath, the caption reads...

"In case of stairs, use fire"